


And I didn't have to call it loneliness

by chrundletheokay



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Borderline Personality Disorder, Canon Typical Misogynistic Language, Charlie is just... very confused, Dialogue Heavy, Eating Disorders, I've edited this so much I hate it, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Inhalant abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mac is not in this much tbh, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shitt's Creek references, Substance Abuse, because Charlie is not particularly good at the comfort part of the equation, but I really wanted to get it done and posted before s14 airs so..., i hesitate to call this hurt/comfort, i tried to write in the past tense for once and it was... difficult, if the verbs seem weird that is why, it's more of a Charlie and Dennis thing, no offense meant to fans of Shitt's Creek bc I like the show too, post s13 / pre s14, you don't need to watch Shitt's Creek to get it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 05:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20754926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrundletheokay/pseuds/chrundletheokay
Summary: Charlie is assigned the unenviable task of babysitting Dennis while Mac goes on a date.





	And I didn't have to call it loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> “At seventeen, I started to starve myself  
I thought that love was a kind of emptiness  
At least I understood then the hunger I felt  
And I didn’t have to call it loneliness.”  
— “Hunger,” Florence and the Machine  

> 
> [TW: canon-typical misogyny and internalized homophobia, references to trauma/rape*, eating disorder and weight loss talk, substance abuse, Dennis-typical self-destructive/toxic/manipulative behavior, Charlie-typical stalking of the Waitress]
> 
> *(i.e., "The Gang Misses the Boat." The first big block of text features Charlie feeling very uncomfortable/unsafe around Dee, if you'd like to skip over that.) (There are also allusions later on to Charlie's trauma, but it's super vague, imho.)

“C’mon. He’s gonna be a mess again, Charlie, and you know it,” Dee snapped.

In those big stomping boots of hers, Dee towered over him like a giant bird. An ostrich, or perhaps some sort of ancient dinosaur-bird-hybrid. Something feathery and looming and imposing. It made Charlie feel restless and twitchy all the way down to his core. On any other day, he would shout at her and storm out of the bar. Today, however, Dee was making a rare, valid point.

“Seriously,” she continued, “we can’t afford to have him pass out again. You’re a shitty waitress, and I’m sick and tired of doing his work for him.”

That was true, too — waitressing was the _worst._ Charlie spent a good deal of the night spilling drinks on drunk old dudes and getting cursed at, mixing up orders because people’s faces all looked the same, and getting stiffed on tips. It was like their asshole customers thought Charlie being bad at his job meant he shouldn’t get paid for it.

By the end of the night, Charlie found himself sobbing hysterically into a bag of rubber cement and thinking about the Waitress. He couldn’t help but wonder how she did it all those years. It gave him a newfound admiration for her. If he thought she was incredible before… well now, she was practically a magician, or a goddess, or some shit. All waitresses _must_ be supernatural beings, in order to last more than a day on the job.

“Charlie!” Dee snapped her fingers in his face. “Earth to Charlie, _hello!”_

“Shit, dude,” he barked, swatting Dee’s bony claws away from his face. “Look. He’s your brother. Why can’t _you_ babysit him?”

_“I have a date,”_ she shouted, emphasizing each word as if Charlie were both hard of hearing and incapable of understanding English.

“You keep saying that, but it wasn’t funny the first time. I don’t know why you think repeating it’s gonna make it funnier.”

Dee went bug-eyed at that, her hands clenching into fists. “It’s not a joke! I have a date,” she shrieked. Her high-pitched voice pierced straight into Charlie’s skull. “They’re gonna be here any minute. So I need you to go and—”

“Fine, fine. Whatever,” he conceded, the words tumbling out in a rush. _Anything_ to get her to shut up.

“It’s not _whatever!_ Just do it!”

Dee reached into her pocket and took a giant step closer. Charlie didn’t have time to move, or to do anything more than flinch. Because then she was right there, in his face, and he found himself frozen where he stood.

_“Go. Do it. Now,”_ Dee growled.  Her voice made it clear there was no room for argument, like she might actually claw Charlie to pieces and eat him whole if he disagreed. Her fingers grazed his skin as she as pressed a keyring into the palm of his hand.

At last, something in him snapped. “Jesus Christ, I’m going,” he shouted as loudly as he could. “Seriously, you don’t have to be such a bitch about it!”

Before Dee could say any more, he stormed out of the bar and slammed the door behind him.

————

It was drizzling ever so slightly on the walk over to Mac and Dennis’s apartment — a fine mist falling down over Charlie and clinging to his skin. In spite of the rain, the air felt warm and sticky. It was not at all refreshing.

“Look at it this way,” Mac told him once, when the two of them were stranded in a downpour. “It’s like a free shower. Pretty much the only way we can get you to bathe.”

This didn’t feel at all like that, though. As he walked, Charlie thought of acid rain and air pollution, smog and car exhaust. Noticeable over the smell of rain was the stench of garbage wafting off the dumpsters, and a pungent odor floating over from the refinery.

Fortunately, Charlie wasn’t too wet by the time he reached his destination. With a sigh of defeat, he trudged up the stairs and let himself into the apartment using the spare key Dee had given him.

The living room was dark, save for a sliver of light creeping out from under the door to Dennis’s bedroom. He shoved the door open without so much as a knock.

“Jesus _shit,_ Charlie!” Dennis gasped as he sat up in bed, clutching a hand to his chest. “What the hell, man? You scared the christ out of me.”

Charlie shrugged, and watched the rapid rise and fall of Dennis’s chest. It felt almost like looking into a mirror. Like when Frank would hide behind the sofa and jump out to get a rise out of him, laughing at the wide-eyed look of shock on Charlie’s face.

“My bad, bro,” Charlie mumbled. “Just came to hang out or something.”

Dennis narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why,” he demanded, voice flat and suspicious.

“I dunno. Nothing goin’ on. Frank’s got a thing.”

With a sigh, Dennis threw himself back onto the pillows. “Not like there’s anything going on over here,” he replied, his voice laced with bitterness.

“Cool.” Charlie crawled into bed and stretched out on his stomach next to Dennis. He pressed his face into the pillow. It was cool and smelled faintly of the expensive floral-scented products Dennis put in his hair and on his face. The sheets were the softest cotton Charlie had ever touched. He hummed contentedly.

“No, seriously, this is weird," Dennis insisted. "What’re you doing, man?”

Charlie turned his head over to peek over at Dennis, who looked suddenly irritated. Charlie couldn’t think why.

“What? Can’t a guy just hang out with his friend? Like, you don’t have to be all suspicious, bro.”

Dennis propped himself up on one elbow, and leaned down to glower in Charlie’s face. “You’re acting suspicious! What do you want, man? What’re you doing here?”

Charlie fumbled, searching for an answer. He prepared an excuse on the walk over. It was an elaborate and convincing cover story, complete with a dramatic monologue and accompanying hand gestures. Once he was actually confronted with the sight of Dennis, however, his mind went blank for a brief moment — nothing but a white expanse of bright emptiness.

And then his cover story was gone. In its place, there was nothing but a vague and transparent lie.

The real problem was that Charlie had expected to find Dennis drinking, watching TV in the living room, pretending to be fine. Instead, he got this: Dennis, defeated. The pained look on his face. The bags under his eyes. His sallow skin, the sharp curve of his jaw. He looked more exhausted than Charlie could remember ever seeing him. 

“I dunno,” he answered at last. “Like I said, I just thought we’d hang out, or whatever. I feel like we don’t do that a lot lately, y’know?” Even to his own ears, the answer sounded hesitant. The delay in answering didn't help, either, and Charlie knew it.

Dennis’s face made it obvious he didn’t buy it.

It should have been an acceptable answer, though. Charlie never was good with words and talking, the way that Dennis was. No, Charlie was always better with music and pictures. He was an artist, after all. If he were able to put things into words properly, he might have become a writer instead.

But Dennis had always been a suspicious asshole. And on tonight, of all nights? When Mac was out on a date? Of course Dennis was on high alert. Of course he was even more suspicious than usual, more sensitive than ever. Of course he was the usual Dennis, with the volume turned all the way up to eleven. After all, that was why Charlie was sent over — to babysit the guy and keep him from doing anything especially self-destructive while Mac was on his date.

_“Charlie.”_ In that tone of voice, his name came out like a warning, a rebuke. “Did someone tell you to come here?”

Charlie felt his cheeks flush and his heart race. Lying generally was not a problem for him. But lying to Dennis’s face, as Dennis looked him square in the eyes? Lying to Dennis when he was already going through whatever bullshit this was? That was entirely different.

It was no wonder, then, that his answer came out as an awkward stammer. The stammering, in turn, made Charlie more anxious. “What? _No._ Why would—Can’t a guy just hang out with his bro without—Like, I don’t take orders from—I’m my own—”

“Wow. Fuck you, man,” Dennis snarled.

“Fine. Look, Dee asked me, alright? She’s got, like, a date tonight or whatever, and Frank—”

“I don’t need you to _babysit_ me, Charlie.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Seriously, bro? When’s the last time you ate?”

“None of your goddamn business,” snapped Dennis, like that wasn’t a bratty child’s answer. The evasiveness and defensiveness was an answer in its own way. Clearly it had been too long, and even Dennis knew it.

Charlie jabbed at him with an index finger. “Bro, the last time Mac went on a date, you didn’t eat for, like… _days._ You can’t _do_ that shit.”

“Yes I can! And anyway, it had nothing to do with—It wasn’t—I just needed to lose a couple pounds, but it’s fine now. _I’m_ fine, so you can go.”

Charlie leaned up on his elbows and scowled over at Dennis. “Oh, that’s bullshit, dude. That’s _such_ bullshit. It was manipulative as fuck, bro, even for you. You can’t just, like, throw a tantrumevery time Mac goes on a date.”

Dennis sat up fully at that — the Golden God, ever insistent on towering over everyone. “I do _not_ do that! It didn’t have anything to do with—Can’t I do _anything_ without it having to be about Mac?”

“Not when it _is_ about him. Seriously, dude, if you wanted Mac, you could’ve—Like, but you _didn’t, okay?_ And you _don’t_, Dennis. You just want to—Hell, I don’t know, but you don’t _own_ the guy.”

By the end of Charlie’s rant, Dennis’s face was deathly pale. He looked stricken. It clearly had been too long since anyone had told him off. He probably wasn’t used to it, living with Mac.  That was the problem: when it came to Dennis, Mac would roll over at the slightest provocation. He was like a pathetic little puppy who just wanted to please his master.

It was refreshing to see Dennis reduced to speechlessness. God, it was _everything._

“Mac’s been driving us all crazy with this thing. And now, he’s finally moving on. So let him move on! I mean it dude. I’ll kill you, Dennis; I swear to god, I will. With my bare hands, I’ll strangle you. Just let Mac live his life, and be gay with dudes, and let the rest of us move on with our lives. I mean, Jesus _Christ!”_

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” growled Dennis. “Now get out. Just go.”

Charlie scrunched up his face and answered flippantly, “Not till you eat, bitch. I got squatter’s rights. And orders from your demented sister.”

————

Dennis resisted eating at first. There was a bit of (attempted) bloodshed, but that was nothing new. It was nothing Charlie couldn’t handle, either. It turns out that people who haven’t been eating are no good at fighting or wrestling, or scratching or biting, or exerting strength in general.

After their minor skirmish, he cajoled Dennis into eating. It was a rather delicate process that involved placating Dennis with a couple bottles of beer (stolen out of Dennis’s own fridge, of course). There was also a bag full of rubber cement that Charlie brought over, stashed in his jacket pocket. He hadn’t expected Dennis to be partake, but he’d been wrong before.

Charlie felt lazy and heavy afterward, as they slumped across Dennis’s bed. The two of them sat propped up against the headboard, sipping beer in silence. Dennis set his laptop at the foot of the bed and pulled up Netflix.

He was in the middle of a TV show. It was hard to follow, but it was set near a place called Poop River. The main characters lived in a shitty motel and pretended to be rich. They got into all sorts of trouble and hijinks, and they constantly insulted the other townspeople for being poor and ugly and stupid.

At least one of the characters seemed really gay.

Charlie didn’t say anything. Why would he? Dennis didn’t either.

They just drank their beer in silence, and no one got hurt. It was fine.

————

The door creaked open as another episode was ending. Mac stood in the doorway, shuffling from foot to foot.

“Charlie? What’re you doing here, bro,” he asked.

Charlie squinted up at him through bleary eyes. Mac’s restless movement was making the room tilt and spin dangerously around him. At any moment, Mac might fly off the floor, up into the air, and right out the window. Rubber cement was great that way.

“Oh, hey,” Charlie managed at last. “You’re back early.”

Mac shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.”

Dennis shuffled around to peek past Charlie, jostling the bed in the process. In reality, the bed probably wasn’t moving much. But after all the shit Charlie drank and huffed, it felt like being inside of one of those shiny metal things Dennis used to make martinis: _shaken, not stirred, boys._

“Did he dump you,” Dennis asked, his voice snide and cutting.

It was a fair question, but the transparent eagerness behind it made Charlie want to crawl under the bed and hide. He desperately wished he could think of a way to extricate himself from the situation without making it more awkward.

“Nah, I dumped him,” Mac muttered. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and scuffed the toe of his worn boot along the wooden floorboards.

“What? _Why?”_ Charlie screeched. “Are you kidding me, dude?”

Dennis’s face looked pinched, like he’d eaten something sour. Charlie couldn’t imagine why.After all, this seemed exactly like what Dennis wanted. But Dennis didn’t seem to have a witty comeback, an insult, or anything at all to say in response.

Charlie, on the other hand, could think of several Dennis-like lines off the top of his head. For instance: _Good, the guy was an idiot._ Or perhaps: _That was stupid. He was way out of your league, bro._

“Whatever,” Mac repeated. “He wasn’t even that hot.” In spite of his fake-nonchalance, there was an obvious undercurrent of embarrassment, like he was eager to drop it and move past it already.

_He was ugly? _Charlie could imagine Dennis saying._ Have you looked in the mirror lately?_

“Dude, he was _so _hot,” Charlie blurted out.

“Well, he’s single now, Charlie, so be my guest!”

Charlie shook his head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Yeah, you look like it,” Mac muttered as he shuffled a little farther into the room. “What’re you two doing, anyway?”

Charlie shrugged. “Nothing. Just watching Netflix and chilling, or whatever.”

Mac made a weird noise at that, almost as if he was choking on nothing.

“Hey, no,” Dennis yelped as he slapped at Charlie’s shoulder. “Not like that. Jesus, Charlie, c’mon.”

“What? We are! We’re just hanging out and watching this TV show. I don't see what the big deal is.”

“‘Netflix and chill’ is something entirely different, bro,” Mac said, his voice slightly strained.

“Oh.” Charlie paused to search his memory. He vaguely recalled Dee explaining that term, after going on a series of underwhelming dates with an undertaker. “Oh. Is that—That’s the one where you pretend you’re gonna watch a movie, but instead you just bang, right?”

“Yes,” Dennis hissed. “That’s the one.”

“Oh. Gross.” Charlie scrunched up his face at the thought. “Yeah, we’re not doing that. Netflixing and hanging, how ‘bout that? That’s what we’re doing.”

Mac shook his head slowly in a way that said: _I can’t believe this shit. But really, it’s par for the course with you, bro, so there’s no use arguing about it._

That was the thing about knowing Mac for so long — he didn’t have to say anything at all to say so much. His stupid goddamn face said it all for him. And that, too, was the problem between Mac and Dennis. Without saying anything out loud, Mac communicated all of his gross, gooey feelings. Feelings that none of the others wanted to hear. Especially Dennis.

“So what’re you guys watching,” asked Mac, who was obviously fishing for an invitation to join them.

Dennis burrowed back into the bed with a sigh, and turned away from Mac. Literally giving Mac the cold shoulder. It wasn’t exactly surprising, although it was rather anticlimactic. Because, truly, it was only the latest in a series of childish moves on Dennis’s part.

First, Dennis threw a hissy fit and insulted Mac's date. Next, he looked for the guy on the sex offender registry. (As if Dennis didn’t belong on that list himself.) No luck there. Then, Dennis decided to lose “just a couple of pounds,” again. Finally, after being told that Mac dumped the guy, Dennis decided to top it all off by giving Mac the silent treatment.

If they hadn’t been stuck together for so long, Charlie couldn’t imagine watching all that and wanting to stay friends with such a colossal asshole.

Mac’s face fell slightly at the lack of response from Dennis. Charlie took pity on him, if only to bring this miserable conversation closer to an end.

_“Crap Creek,_ I think, is the name?” he answered. The look Dennis gave him in response clearly communicated that Charlie was insane, or an idiot, so that must not have been right.

“Oh,” Mac said. “That sounds… uh…”

_Shitty,_ based on the title. Except Mac would watch anything, just as an excuse to stay. Just so long as he could crawl into bed next to Dennis and pretend everything was okay.

Dennis obviously didn’t want that, though. It was the last thing Charlie wanted, too — being stuck in the middle of any more awkward interactions between the two of them.

_“Yeah,”_ Charlie drawled after an uncomfortable silence. “Well, it’s on Netflix, so uhhh… You can probably find it on there. On your computer, or whatever… So…”

Mac blinked hard a couple times, and shuffled from foot to foot some more. “Uh. Right. So I should probably…?”

_“Yeahhh,_ you should probably go,” Charlie answered.

Mac looked like a puppy who’d been told off for pissing on the carpet. But really, whose fault was that?

Dennis’s. It was Dennis’s fault, the bastard.

————

“It’s suffocating, you know,” slurred Dennis, after they gave up on _Shit River._

Admittedly, they hit the rubber cement a little too hard after Mac left. Eventually, neither of them could focus long enough to discern whether the theme music playing was the intro to an episode or the credits. So they huffed more glue, lying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“It’s like… Yeah, it’s suffocating,” Dennis repeated, as if confirming it for himself.

It seemed like a bit of an exaggeration. The glue high was probably warping Dennis’s perspective. He just wasn’t used to it the way Charlie was.

Dennis’s eyes were bloodshot and he was clutching the bag of rubber cement to his chest like a beloved stuffed animal. Charlie couldn’t blame him; it was a good batch. Dennis wasn’t exactly doing a good job of sharing, though.

“Look, man, he’ll find another date soon enough,” Charlie responded placatingly. “Mac’s a whore, so it’ll be fine.”

“No, no, no.” Dennis aimed a slap in Charlie’s direction, and missed. His hand barely grazed Charlie’s arm. “You don’t get it, dude.”

“Um, no, I guess really don’t, dude. You’re pissed when he’s all obsessing over you, and you’re mopey as shit when he’s banging other dudes. So it’s like… _whatever_, you know? I’m over it, man. You need to figure out what the hell you want, Dennis, ‘cause you’re driving everyone crazy.”

“I just—” Dennis started, his voice low and hesitant. He shook his head, and took another deep inhale from the bag of rubber cement, before trying again: “I just, like… I hate it, y’know?”

“Mac? Yeah, no shit. You’ve mentioned.”

“No,” Dennis groaned. “It’s like… Big feelings, Charlie. _Big_ feelings. Right here.” He patted the palm of one hand just over his sternum “Right here, dude. It _sucks.”_

“Right,” drawled Charlie as he delicately extricated the bag of glue from Dennis’s hands.

In response, Dennis looked over with big sad drooping eyes and a giant pout. It was enough to make any reasonable person want to throw themselves off the fire escape. Instead, Charlie took a couple more hits of glue.

The first — and last — time Dennis talked about Big Feelings was that Valentine’s Day when Mac gave him the RPG. Right before that.

At the time, Charlie could have sworn that Dennis was about two seconds away from either bursting into tears or making out with Mac in the middle of the bar— right there in front of Frank, and Frank’s intestinal parasite, and _everyone._

But Dennis didn’t do either of those things.

The next thing they knew, he left town, and no one heard from him for eighteen months. Not a single word. Not a single call or text message, or even an emoji.

It wasn’t the first time Charlie had misread the situation when Dennis was involved. The guy was volatile, unpredictable. Perhaps all their plans went awry because Dennis was the true wildcard in the end. They should have recognized it sooner.

“It’s like…” Dennis gestured vaguely and expansively around him, obviously searching for the words, as if he could grasp them out of thin air. “It’s like it fills you up, until that’s all you feel. That’s all you are, is this thing, this feeling inside of you. And—And maybe it’s a good feeling. I dunno. It’s supposed to be. Everyone seems to think it is, anyway. But, like, Charlie. Dude. I swear, sometimes… sometimes I could just explode from feeling so much.”

Dennis looked back over with his red-rimmed eyes. He squinted and blinked slowly a few times, as if trying to focus on the face before him. Charlie wasn’t entirely sure what his own face was doing, except that it felt all scrunched up with confusion.

Dennis never could handle his inhalants.

“But it’s like… you don’t eat,” Dennis continued, “and then that’s all you feel: hungry. None of that other shit matters anymore.”

Charlie shook his head, hoping to clear off a little of his glue haze. “Bro, you’re not making any sense. You’re saying, like… You’d rather be hungry than feel good?”

“No,” Dennis waved him off with a scowl. “You’re not listening. I’d rather—Better hungry than… like… feeling too much. Feel nothing, ‘stead of… ‘stead of everything. I’m not—I’m not lonely, Charlie. I’m just hungry.”

“Then fucking eat something, dude,” Charlie answered. Easy solution.

Dennis scrubbed his hands over his face. “No,” he groaned. “You still don’t get it!”

In a weird way, Charlie felt like he shouldn’t complain about Dennis not making sense. At least Dennis was talking. He was _trying_ to explain it, even if it just sounded like he was having a stroke, or reading an entry from Dee’s middle school diary. Best of all, he was doing it all without screaming or insults or threats of violence.

So maybe Charlie could meet him halfway. Through the haze of his high, he tried to piece together the clues.  A lot of it was bullshit and lies. Dennis lying to himself, and Dennis lying to Charlie. But mixed in with that was an uncharacteristic amount of honesty.

The biggest clue was this: In spite of Dennis's claims to the contrary, this was obviously about Mac. Second clue: Dennis was wrong, because he absolutely was lonely. Third: Dennis still had big feelings. Good feelings, supposedly. Although he didn't appear to be feeling good.

The last clue was most obvious, because it was the reason for Charlie’s presence. That clue was this: Dennis was pissed off about Mac dating.

So Dennis was jealous. Jealousy was a feeling.

And Dennis was jealous in a _big_ way. In a self-destructive, bullshit, manipulative way. In a pathetic, quiet, desperate, moping way.

But there were good feelings in there, too, he said.

Some of the pieces were starting to fit. It was all starting to make sense. Add in a good rubber cement high, and—

“You don’t hate him at all, do you?” Charlie asked faintly.

There was a long pause, which was telling enough. And then, ever so hesitantly, Dennis shook his head. If Charlie hadn’t been looking closely, he might have missed it.

Charlie’s response exploded out of him: “Oh, are you _kidding_ me? Seriously, dude?”

“Don’t,” whined Dennis. “Don’t say it.”

“Oh my _god._ You do. Oh, Jesus Christ, dude.”

Dennis hushed him loudly with a finger over his lips. “Seriously, dude, don’t freak out,” Dennis pleaded. “You’re gonna make it worse if you freak out. It’s bad enough already.”

“Yeah, no shit! You’re in _love_ with him! With _Mac._”

“Shut _up_, Jesus.” Dennis buried his face in a pillow and let out a prolonged groan.

This was exactly how Charlie always imagined middle school girls’ sleepovers going. He might as well lean into it. Because unlike Dennis, he would never walk out on a bro who was going through something big — whether that was a fake cancer scare, a Big Gay Crisis, or a crush on the most obnoxious asshole ever to live.

“When,” Charlie demanded. “How long.”

After another agonized moan, Dennis mumbled an answer into the pillow.

“Bro, I can’t hear you when you’re talking into the pillow like that.”

With another groan, Dennis turned his head to the side, pointedly avoiding eye contact. “I dunno,” he muttered. “Since Penn, at least.”

Charlie’s brain felt like it was shattering into a million pieces. None of it made sense. But also? It made _so_ much sense. He was sure he’d caught glimpses of it before, but always managed to convince himself he was seeing things. But he was right. This whole time he was right.

“Since Penn, at least,” Charlie repeated breathlessly. “Since P—Are you kidding me? Are you fucking _kidding_ me?”

Judging by the wince on Dennis’s face, Charlie’s voice had risen to a painful shriek. But who could blame him? Dennis hushed him again, and hissed out a frantic, “He’ll hear you!”

“Your room is soundproofed, you _sick_ mother_fucker_,” Charlie shouted as loud as he could.

The room went silent after that. Dennis just stared back at him with bleary, red eyes.

Charlie laughed, hoarse and breathy, bordering on hysterical. He couldn’t even hide his incredulity. Dennis always had a knack for making things far more complicated than they needed to be. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that this situation was no different in that regard.

“Oh my god, dude. I mean, oh my god,” Charlie exclaimed.

The furrow of Dennis’s brow, the creases at the corners of his downturned mouth said that he was taking Charlie’s reaction way too personally.

“I just—_Dennis._ Dude. If it were me, man? If the Waitress loved me back? It’s like… I’d be golden, y’know? I really don’t see what the problem is.”

“Don’t see—” Dennis laughed, quiet and humorless. “No, of course not.”

The predictable allusion to Charlie’s supposed stupidity prickled at him, like a thousand fire ants crawling under his skin. “Well, maybe you should explain it better, ’cause you’re not making any sense,” he snapped.

“I told you already. It’s like…” Dennis let out a long-suffering sigh. “It’s suffocating.”

“Then you’ve probably had too much glue. What you’re feeling right now? That’s a glue O.D. But it’ll be fine. Just breathe, get some fresh air, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

Dennis shook his head. “No, it’s not the glue. It’s like… Fuck it. Forget it.”

“What?” Charlie prodded at his shoulder; Dennis swatted back irritably. “Bro, I feel like if we just hash this shit out once and for all, then it’ll be a lot less miserable for everyone. ‘Cause then we can all just move past it.”

“I doubt it,” Dennis grumbled.

Charlie poked insistently at him. With a scowl, Dennis swatted his hands away once more. But he sighed, and closed his eyes. Something about the determined look on his face said he was searching for a better way of explaining it.

“People think that, because they love you or whatever, that means they own you,” Dennis murmured at last. “It’s like… everything you are is _theirs._ You know? It just swallows you whole. And then there’s nothing left of you.”

It almost made sense. At least, the words went together in an order that seemed to follow basic rules of English grammar. But overall, it was insane, and really just sad. Dennis was wrong about love, in ways Charlie couldn’t even begin to understand or argue with. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, a twisting feeling in his gut, a lot like pity.

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking, bro,” Charlie declared. “For real, I’m cutting you off. No more glue. Mac’s not gonna eat you, dude. He’s not a cannibal.”

It was visible on Dennis’s face, the second that switch flipped in his mind. He went from morose stillness to burning rage in an instant. “That was a metaphor,” he bellowed. “Do you know what a metaphor is? I’m waxing poetic, okay, Charlie. Can I do that? Am I allowed to—Is the Golden God allowed to—”

“Dude, shut up_,_ will you? You’ve been such a bitch lately, I swear to god.”

Surprisingly, the interruption was enough to stop Dennis. There was an unmistakeable scowl on his face, but he clamped his mouth shut and grabbed for the rubber cement. Charlie had never seen someone huff _angrily_ before. But then again, if anyone could make huffing glue look like an act of pure spite, it was Dennis.

“Hey, d’you think if you and Mac, like—” Charlie mimed a crude gesture, the one Frank always used to mean _banging_ “—y’know? D’you think you’d get this outta your system, and be less of an uptight asshole all the time?”

Dennis coughed and gagged into the bag of rubber cement. “I am going to _kill you,”_ he rasped.

Charlie shrugged. Nothing new there.

————

“Hey,” Charlie said some time later.

Dennis didn’t respond. He was coming down from his high, slumped boneless atop the bed, with his head resting Charlie’s chest.

“Hey,” Charlie repeated and tugged lightly on a little strand of Dennis’s dirty-blonde hair. He strongly suspected Dennis was bleaching or dying his hair, or some combination of the two. He didn’t know enough about hair products to say for sure, though. Regardless, this didn’t seem like the time to call him on it. Better to wait and mock him in front of the others.

Finally, Dennis craned his neck to look up. His eyes were still pink and bloodshot, his brows ever so slightly furrowed. It almost made Charlie feel guilty for yelling at him earlier.

“Hmmm?” answered Dennis at last.

“Remember that shit Frank keeps talking about? About how we have all this shit inside us, and we gotta let it out? That’s you, man.” Charlie jabbed a finger into Dennis’s shoulder for emphasis. “You gotta let it bleed.”

“No thanks. I think I’ve done enough bleeding already,” he muttered.

Charlie snorted a quiet laugh. “That’s deep, bro, but you definitely haven’t.”

“How d’you know?” Dennis demanded. “You don’t know my life. You don’t know my… my feelings or whatever.”

“Uh, yeah I do, man. And you know how? ’Cause you just told me. Also, cause you’re all moping and shit,” Charlie answered definitively. “And ‘cause you haven’t told Mac.”

Dennis groaned quietly in response, and pressed his face into Charlie’s t-shirt.

Charlie felt his brain skip like a scratched record. Like he was on the right track, knew where the song was going, then… _woah._ Pause, back up, and try again.

Because unlike Mac, Charlie wouldn’t pretend to be able to decode a grunt or a moan or a grumble. That moan could have meant “I don’t even want to think about telling Mac.” But it also could have meant: “yes, I _have_ told Mac, and it didn’t go over well; thank you very much.”

“Hang on, _have_ you told Mac,” Charlie asked.

Dennis scowled up at him, dark and dangerous. He swatted Charlie’s hands away, sat up and pulled away from him on the bed. “Of course I haven’t,” he snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Well, there you go! It only feels like too much ‘cause you’re carrying it all on your own. You gotta _share_ it. That’s what love is all about, bro. Trust me on this,” he explained with confidence.

Charlie was a romantic at heart. By this point, he had dedicated well over ten years to chasing the woman of his dreams. He continually looked after her, protecting her from the many dangers inherent to South Philly. And he was never dissuaded by rejection, because he remained secure in the knowledge that the Waitress would eventually see the light and realize she loved him back. What could be more romantic than that?

But _of course _Dennis was confused about love. He saw all of Charlie’s efforts and called it _stalking._

“Dude,” argued Dennis. “Don’t say that word, first of all. Second of all, you sound like a goddamn fortune cookie.”

Charlie charitably didn’t inform Dennis that he sounded like an old curmudgeon. Over the sounds of Dennis rummaging through his nightstand, Charlie instead responded, “Whatever, you’re just pissed ‘cause I’m right.”

Surprisingly, Dennis didn’t fight back. It might have been because his mouth was full of crème de menthe. _Of course_ he kept a stash in his bedroom, the goddamn lush.

(Charlie, admittedly, kept a stash in the cushions of his futon. That was different, though. The futon was his bed at night, but it was his sofa during the day. His apartment was his bedroom at night, but it was also his living room and his kitchen and his bathroom. His everything, really. So it was nothing like Dennis — a person with a proper kitchen — hiding booze in his bedroom.)

Dennis drank a healthy amount, then passed it over. Charlie never liked the shit. Still, a drink was a drink.

Dennis once claimed that Charlie had shitty taste in liquor because he wasn’t “classy” enough to recognize the good stuff. The usual “white trash” insult.

What Dennis didn’t realize was that it took a sophisticated person to appreciate the simple things in life. Things like a forty in a plastic bottle, stolen from the corner liquor store. Things like bulk hotdogs; or a big block of cheese lifted from the grocery store; or milksteak, boiled over hard. Things like cat food, beer, and glue — three basic ingredients, which combined to make the most sophisticated sleeping tonic known to humankind.

That was the kind of stuff Charlie wanted. That was what he was about. A good game of Nightcrawlers. Sharing a futon with a man who possibly was his father. Being independent. Not being tied down to a needy asshole, like Mac or Dennis. Not complicating things with needless sex. Staying single, and patiently waiting for the love of his life to come to her senses and decide to be with him for good. Not having a decades-long homoerotic love/hate relationship with his closeted gay roommate.

Okay, so the crème de menthe hit a little harder than Charlie anticipated.

————

By the time they solidly came down from their respective highs, they were completely wasted.

“S’late,” Dennis slurred. “You should stay over.”

Obvious Dennis code for: _I’m needy. Don’t leave me._

But it _was_ late. And, again, Charlie was piss-ass drunk. If he stayed, he would probably have to listen to Dennis's continued whining about his Big Feelings. That wasn’t exactly compelling. However, neither was the the long walk home in the dark, while drunk off his ass. The last time Charlie tried that, he learned a painful lesson. Specifically, he wandered into the middle of an empty street, and sprained an ankle stepping into a sinkhole.

When he really thought about it, Charlie didn’t want to move at all. It seemed like far more trouble than it was worth. The world was spinning so badly and his body felt unbearably heavy. What’s more, in that moment, Dennis’s bed seemed like the most comfortable place on Earth. When Charlie closed his eyes, he could imagine he was lying on a giant marshmallow.

“Yeah, probably for the best,” he mumbled into a pillow.

————

Of course, Charlie had to move eventually. Dennis insisted he brush his teeth, as if Charlie was the one who had just spent half an hour vomiting up crème de menthe and diet pills.

“Bro,” Dennis insisted, impressively vehemently in spite of his slurring, “if you’re gonna sleep with your face anywhere near my face, you’re brushing your goddamn teeth.”

It was as if Dennis wasn’t the one who invited Charlie to sleep with his face near Dennis’s face in the first place. But Dennis badgered Charlie and tugged at his limbs, until Charlie gave in and stumbled to the bathroom.

Afterward, tucked back into bed, Charlie watched the ceiling spin around overhead.

“You’re, like, the worst babysitter ever, dude,” Dennis whined weakly. “I feel like such shit. Like, what even’s the point of you?”

“Not my fault you’re an alcoholic,” Charlie muttered.

_“You’re_ an alcoholic.”

As far as child’s insults went, it was probably true. But as far as Charlie was concerned, it was just one of those things — if you didn’t acknowledge it aloud, then you didn’t have to deal with it. Wasn’t that the way of the world? Ignore it until it goes away. Ignore it and _hope_ it goes away. Ignore it and wonder why it _isn’t_ going away.

Besides, it could always be worse.

A few nights after coming out to his dad, Mac got wasted and came out to Charlie all over again. It was incredibly bizarre, but Mac insisted that Charlie shut up and listen. And then he’d talked about being gay, and coming out. Or _not_ coming out. About being in the closet all those years. He said that ignoring it didn’t make it go away. That it was never going to, but that he was okay with that now. He was _happy about it_ now.

Mac said that coming out was the hardest thing he'd ever done. But lying to himself hurt, maybe more than anything. Trying not to be gay, willing it not to be true, was all too painful. It was making him sick, he said.

In the dark that night, after Mac went home, a little voice inside Charlie’s head started nagging at him. It told him what Mac said was true: _These things never go away. Eventually, you have to deal with them._ The little voice reminded Charlie of everything he didn't want to think about, everything he pretended he'd forgotten, everything he tried to convince himself wasn't a big deal. So  Charlie crawled into the crevice, clamped his hands over his ears, and hummed loudly to himself. Eventually, the voice shut up.

As they lay in the dark of Dennis’s bedroom, Charlie wondered if Dennis had similar reasons for never dealing with this thing. This thing with Mac. This thing where he was still claiming to be straight. _Of course_ Dennis was gay. _Of course_ he was in love with Mac. Now that Charlie knew, he couldn’t _not_ see it. He couldn’t believe he didn’t see it sooner. It was obvious, hidden in plain sight.

Just like it was obvious that Dennis was still trying stuff it down, and was getting increasingly frantic about it. Increasingly desperate. Hiding in his room, getting wasted more and more often, skipping meals, losing weight, getting high with Charlie.

There were other things, too. Things Charlie didn’t like to think about. Like indiscriminately banging sketchy people off of Craigslist. Or “accidentally” leaving his computer open with the video footage there for Mac to see — footage that was so horrible Mac claimed he couldn’t bring himself to watch it.

It was a lot, and it was sick. It was making Dennis sick, too. _Sicker,_ anyway. But not sick in a common, easily solved way. Not the kind of sick where he could pick up cough syrup and orange juice at the Wawa, and wait it out. Not the kind of sick where he could go to the doctor for antibiotics, and then everything would magically get better in three to five business days.

No, it was the kind of sickness that rotted you down to your core, eating away at you until it was the only thing left. Until one day, you woke up and realized you didn’t know who you were anymore. Because this was it. All that was left was this thing dark, ugly thing, that was swallowing you whole.

Charlie knew that kind of sickness, even if he never spoke it aloud. That wasn’t the kind of thing the Gang talked about. It was hard, after all, to ask for help from deep within the stomach of this monster that had consumed you. It was hard to see the way out, too. Stomachs, Charlie figured, must be pretty dark inside. Until you opened your mouth, anyway; then maybe some light could come in, shining down your esophagus into the dark depths of your gut.

“In my defense,” Charlie answered at last, “I kept you from throwing yourself out the window.”

It wasn’t the most solid defense, to be sure. But the truth was that no one had ever been able to stop Dennis from throwing himself headlong into things that hurt him.

“There’s always tomorrow,” Dennis responded, in a tone of voice indicating Charlie should feel reassured by that possibility.

Charlie shook his head. “Nah, s’gonna be a dumb idea tomorrow, too.”

“You don’t know that,” Dennis mumbled as he rolled over and pressed his face back into Charlie’s shoulder. “Mac could have a date tomorrow, too.”

Charlie sighed. His eyelids were heavy, his limbs were heavy, his entire body felt heavy — weighted down with sleep and sweat and booze, with exhaustion and new insight into the ongoing clusterfuck that was Mac and Dennis. Mac-and-Dennis. MacDennis.

“You gotta do something, Den, ‘cause this isn’t normal, bro.”

_“You’re_ not normal,” Dennis muttered.

“No shit,” replied Charlie.  Unlike Dennis, he had long since accepted that he was weird as shit. Sometimes Charlie suspected he was an alien from Saturn who’d landed on the wrong planet. And it seemed like no one would ever help him find his way home, or teach him how to make sense of human Earthlings.

But that was a problem for another day.

“All this shit you’re doing, bro? S’not good,” Charlie insisted, even as he felt himself drifting off to sleep. “S’not good for you, for Mac, for the Gang… for anyone.”

_“You’re_ not good.”

“How old are you, five?” Charlie muttered. “Whatever. M’tired. Go to sleep, dude.”

Dennis mumbled something incomprehensible and burrowed down deeper into the blankets.

Just as Charlie started to believe that Dennis was asleep, that his babysitting gig was finally over, he heard Dennis’s voice once more. Hesitant and whisper-soft, it broke into the dark silence of the night: “Hey, Charlie? Don’t tell, okay?”

Charlie patted him on the arm. “Oh, dude. I have like… less than zero interest in doing that, bro.”

“Oh,” Dennis mumbled. “Okay.”

“Seriously, I’d rather eat my own shoes than keep talking about this.”

“Cool. Uh. Me too,” Dennis agreed haltingly.

“Whatever. G’night, man. Go to sleep.”

“Hmmm,” Dennis hummed. “Night, Charlie.”

And finally, that was that.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes things just... sort of... end.
> 
> P.S. You also can find me and more of my rambling thoughts about Sunny on tumblr @chrundletheokay


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